do you check after your nursing assistants?

[Ms.RN]

i worked midnight shift because a midnight nurse decided not to show up to work. :anbd:. i'm busy doing my work, and i've noticed that nursing assistants are not checking on their residents. so i told them to check their residents and make sure they are clean and dry. nursing assistance gets up and go into residents room, so i assumed they are doing their rounds and i started my med pass. at the beginning of the next shift, i hear nursing assists complaining about how residents are not being changed. i mean come on, dont they know its their job to change this residents?? they already know that its in their job description to change this residents. so what was i suppose to do? was i suppose to check all 50 resident's briefs and make sure they are dry? i have my own work to do, i have to pass my meds, do treatments, do blood sugar checks, and do charting. do you guys check after them? any suggestion on how i can handle this????

[BradleyRN]

I will appear lazy infront of unappericative nurses whom can not even check a temp or change a diaper while in the room.

Based on your opinion that a nurse shouldnt give you a report because you just got one from the off-going aide, and that even if you are sitting down relaxing by a computer, they shouldnt ask for your help, i have realized that i must be an unappreciative nurse, because you certainly are lazy. Nice first post!

[mstacyi]

Thanks. there need to come to a time when nurses must realize that without their aid they could not possibly do patient care. They also need to keep in mind that they were once an aid themselves or not. Also their aids may have 10-20 patients to rumble with while the (nurse) will have 3-6 patients to look after (numbers are depending on where you work) but regardless of where you work I am sure that the aids are most likely to have more patients then their supervisor.

By the way what kind of a supervisor would I be if I ask my aid to attend to a simple temp check after leaving the patient room (a unappreciative one who don't utilize team work). Also what if I am sitting by the computer because for once in my shift I get to finally sit in front of a computer. Just because I am sitting down does not mean you immediately give me something to do because you want to sit too. Also don't forget that your aid may be working 5 days a week while the nurse will only work 2-3 a week (depending on where you work).

Although it was not my intention to passed as a bad user of this forum. I just thought nurses aids should not be talked so rudely in this friendly forum. Lets not forget that there are many nurses aids whom may use this forum as support, guidance, and vent here too. How about nurses aids start a forum telling stories of how horrible their nurse are on the job. So I guess, I can clearly admit that I am a lazy aid, if my nurses want to give me report the second time when orders has not been change (don't forget that I am not illiterate and I am interacting more with the patient then my nurses). Also I am a lazy aid if my nurses want to make sure that I don't get to sit in front of a computer.

Everyone in the nursing field has a stressful job not just the nurses.

[Ploppers]

I am a nurse tech at a hospital so its a little different with the wet/dry scenario but we have incontinent patients as well. I'm not going to rip the covers off my patients to see it they have a brief or ask if they pee themselves because that could be potentially insulting. I do however ask the nurses for detailed reports on each of my patients (are vs q4 or rt, are they a dwt, how do they void) because I want to make sure I know as much about them as I can to give them the best care. Sadly asking for reports is not required because we have an untrustworthy patient board. A whole mess of techs don't ask for report as a result. As a CNA I sadly have to say from experience of my fellow CNAs check! I'm sorry you do have to check and I'm sorry that it ultimately falls back on you. It should not be like that. We got hired to do that job and should have that same accounability!

[BradleyRN]

I can clearly admit that I am a lazy aid, if my nurses want to give me report the second time when orders has not been change

I was a CNA for many years. I do not bash aides. They are part of the nursing department, and i respect them for the hard job that they do. We are on the same team.

After supervising 100's of aides over the years, and this may hold true for any field but i am in this one, there is clearly a wide variety of standards and work ethics. (Im sure you would say the same for nurses.) But based on this, it is better to be in a habit of giving report than just blindly trusting. It is not that i want to waste their time or mine. I just cant risk aspects of care for our pts falling through the cracks. Take care...

[Roy Fokker, BSN, RN]

There are some aides I LOVE to have working my pod - "no nonsense" would describe their attitude perfectly. They'll document all they observed and did, prioritize correctly (as in an EKG for a chest pain pt. comes before taking someone to the bathroom), routinely walk around the ED to ask if anyone needs any help... heck, they're nice enough to routinely walk up to patients and ask if they need help toileting (and grab me a sample while they're at it!)

And because I love how they help me out, I don't mind stepping in and helping out/doing some of their "chores" for them when I have some 'down time' (calibrate glucometers, check code carts, re-stock airway bags, clean rooms, re-stock med room supplies, patient transport, linen change etc.)

Some aides are so bad I rarely - if ever - bother asking them for anything. I'd much rather do it myself... because it's an utter waste of time to sit around pleading with 'em to do something.

I keep an eye on stuff my aides are delegated to do (and one pet peeve I have is when they fail to document routine tasks)... but at the end of the day, I know 'which ones I need to keep a closer eye on'.

cheers,